Article Series: Getting into a great guild. 5 Steps to getting into your dream guild: Part 3
Getting into a great guild: 5 Steps to getting into your dream guild: Part 3. Blizzard have change the way that World of Warcraft works. Raiding is now open to most players. Due to this, pugs are even worse than ever. It's becomming even more important to find yourself in a great guild. We'll cover Steps 3 and 4. Finding out what they are after and Filling in the missing pieces.
Step 3: Finding out what are they after?
To know what would make them automatically take you means you need to know what they are after and what they deem important.
This is all a matter of perspective, and what's important is their perspective. It's important to see it as it is, not as it should be.
There's an inherent problem for applicants. Those who are in charge of recruiting often don't know what they're doing. Recruiting for a guild is different than a job and you need to remember this. Recruiting, even though it's often like a job application, the person (or people) you are applying to are often less professional than what they demand from their applicants. It sucks, it's unfair, but it's the hard truth. World of Warcraft is a game for them and recruiting is not fun for most people.
Guilds are often less organised than the people tend to be. It's a lot of work to keep yourself organised. It's a lot more work to keep a guild organised.
These two things combined makes it a little harder to apply to a guild. Many guilds don't tell you exactly what they're looking for in an applicant. Some don't even know what exactly they are looking for outside the usual, "Exceptional applicants wanted".
If you're prepared, this gives you an advantage. Since most people are bad at applications and most guilds aren't organised, if you put in a decent effort, you will virtually show that you're the cream of the crop.
How to find out what they want?
The best way is to see what has worked.
How do you do that?
This part is really simple but needs a lot of common sense. Look at the guild's web site for their applications. Look at both successful and unsuccessful applications and look for patterns. There will often be recurring patterns in which makes someone successful in their application and other things that make someone unsuccessful in their app.
Get to know the guild that you're applying for. Read as much of the forum as your access will allow.
There are often recurring theme's for successful applicants:
- Knowledge of their class and their role
- Taking responsibility for their own actions
- Continual and never ending Improvement
- Suitable Experience.
- Common sense
- Intelligence
- Humility
- Confidence
- Positive Attitude
- Competitive
- Team Player
- Min/Max Professions. Often people have the wrong professions that don't help their class.
- Continuity
- Suitably geared
- Dedicated
- Performance
- Honesty
- Hardware & Internet Connection
More on continuity:
This is difficult to explain, I learned the term from filming. Continuity is what makes a movie flow. It removes the distractions from the story telling.
In wow it is having everything you do, lead towards one particular outcome. It's like taking a particular point of view and sticking to it.
Continuity can come in many forms. One form is attitude. Another is spec, gear, gems and enchantments.
An example of attitude that lacks continuity: "I'm not worried about gear." and "I left my previous guild cause I never got any loot."
More on Hardware & Internet Connection:
I'd assume this would fit under common sense, but experience shows me that common sense isn't that common.
A huge thing that limits the performance of a raider is their latency. A decent computer, video card and Internet connection can help that a lot.
There are even people who disconnect in high end content due to their poor internet connection.
We had someone in our guild go from a mid-level plan to a higher-end plan with great bandwidth and eliminated their disconnections during raids.
We also had a trialist using a wireless router and refusing to hardwire his connection. His trial was cut short when he was unable to stay connected during most raids.
Vent and a Microphone is a must have thing for a lot of guilds. If this is the case, ensure you have a microphone that does not give feedback. USB Microphones are your best option.
Your internet connection, computer, video card, and Microphone are your responsibility.
Oxymorons:
You'll notice some things in the above list that look like polar opposites? Eg. Competitive and Team Player or Humility and Condifence.
While they are opposites, they are not mutually exclusive. The best raiders are both competitive and great team players. Their competitiveness drives them to personally perform better. Being a team player helps them push the performance of others.
Talking with officers and guild members:
This can give you a feel for a guild, how it talks with outsiders and applicants. It also gives you a good opportunity to ask questions to what they are after, how they are etc.
Step 4: Fill in the missing pieces:
This is where the hard work starts, especially if you're falling short in lots of areas.
Now compare the lists of what they are after and what you currently are. What is missing?
This gives you a to do list. Basically it's a list of what you have to do to get into the guild of your dreams.
So now I have a list of things I need to do, what do I do now?
Do each and every thing that's on your list.
Simple things you must do BEFORE applying:
- Have all the rep required for proper item enhancements.
- Use correct gems and enchantments.
- Use the correct spec.
- Use the highest level of gems and enchantments available.
- Min/Max professions: If you're using a min/max profession, make sure it's at a level where you can get maximum benefit from it.
Near enough might be more than good enough when you're playing on your own, but as part of a raid group, that's letting 24 others down.
If you haven't been a part of a raiding guild, odds on, you're going to need to join a guild that is more of a social raiding guild first, gather your experience before you can raid in a top level guild. Top raiding guilds highly value experience.
What if I want to apply to a guild that's a little beyond me?
There's nothing to stop you from doing that. Something that may increase your chances of being accepted is to list the areas that you need improvement and listing how you're improving those areas. A good guild may recognise the potential in you and still accept you.
Be realistic. You may have to go back to step 2 and work out what you need right now, as opposed to immediately getting into the best guild. Remember, this is about how to get into your dream guild, not getting into your dream guild right now.
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